


Wired

by sifuamelia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternative Universe - FBI, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Awkward Crush, Awkward Romance, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Comfort/Angst, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Dads of Marmora (Voltron), Denial of Feelings, Developing Friendships, Drama & Romance, Dubious Ethics, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ethical Dilemmas, Feelings Realization, Gay Keith (Voltron), Government Agencies, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Hurt Lance (Voltron), Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Inspired by Music, Internal Conflict, Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt Friendship, Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith and Shiro are Siblings, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Speaks Spanish, Lotor (Voltron) Being an Asshole, Memes, Mild Language, Minor Allura/Shiro (Voltron), Minor Hunk/Shay (Voltron), Moral Dilemmas, Multi, Musical References, Office, POV Keith (Voltron), Past Character Death, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pop Culture, Possibly Unrequited Love, Protective Shiro (Voltron), References to Depression, Romantic Angst, Romantic Comedy, Sassy Pidge | Katie Holt, Secret Crush, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Social Anxiety, Socially Awkward Keith (Voltron), Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), Space Mom Allura (Voltron), Spies & Secret Agents, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Washington D.C.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-13 10:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13569078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sifuamelia/pseuds/sifuamelia
Summary: Keith Kogane didn't think that working for the FBI meant watching some perpetually-heartbroken guy dance around his apartment in his underwear belting songs straight off of a Spotify break-up playlist every single night of the week through said guy's laptop camera. Turns out that he was sorely incorrect about the job description.(Or, here’s some crack based on a topical meme and my break-up playlist. Please don’t judge me too hard for this one, guys…)*ON HOLD UNTIL AFTER S7 AIRS TO ACCOMMODATE NEWLY RELEASED CANONICAL INFORMATION*





	1. Sudden Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sorida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorida/gifts).



It’s nearly Valentine’s Day, but Nyma’s gone and dumped Lance anyway. And Keith hates to admit it, because Lance is probably the most ridiculously emotional person that he’s ever had the misfortune to lay his eyes upon, but at the rate the guy’s currently going — only a month into 2018, and this is his second time being a dumpee — he’s garnered more than a few ounces of Keith’s sympathy. However much it pains him. Because it’s becoming a pretty painful situation, secondhand embarrassment aside. The worst part of it all is—

“Stay here and lay here, right in my arms…”

 _Oh, no,_ Keith thinks to himself. _Not_ ** _this_** _one again._

“It’s only a moment, before you’re gone…”

Lance does a lazy spin around his studio apartment, tightly wrapping his tanned arms around his skinny chest, straight-up octopus-style, before flopping back down onto his messy bed with a dejected _whump_.

“And I-I-I-I, am keeping you warm…”

Now the man’s honest-to-goodness singing along to the sappy track. Another thing that Keith hates to admit — Lance is actually a pretty good singer. Possibly his only redeeming quality. (Okay, he has more than one, but Keith tries not to think about that too much.) His music choices are highly debatable, though, and for a second, Keith’s fingers hover over his desktop’s keyboard, itching to just give in, override, and switch out of the Spotify tab entirely—

“Kogane!” A voice from overhead nearly startles him out of his too-stiff seat. “Got a minute?”

Does he _ever_. Anything to get away from the sorry picture in front of him, overflowing his monitor’s screen and splashing through it in a way that’s causing a shocking amount of sympathetic feelings to well-up in his (self-proclaimed) dead-inside chest.

“Yup,” he nods gratefully, switching off the computer’s sound, but not before a final plea emanates from it—

“Just act like you love me, so I can go on...”

As he follows his boss’s stark-white and dangling braid out of his cramped cubicle and into the churning gray maze of the office, he can’t quite get Lance’s mopey expression out of his head. Sure, the guy’s a thorn in his side, but still…

He shakes his head hurriedly, as if the physical motion will be enough to disperse his thoughts. _Remember, you don’t actually_ ** _know_** _him,_ a voice inside his head reminds him at whisper-level. It sounds suspiciously like his older brother’s, even though Shiro has absolutely no clue what he does during his work day, and if he ever _did_ find out, he’d probably freak.

 _He’s just a project,_ the voice continues, tone firmer than ever. _A project with feelings…_

_But a project nonetheless._

 

* * *

 

“No matter how much we _personally_ disagree with the president’s new surveillance plan _,_ ” Kolivan begins, voice carefully neutral (but Keith’s been working for the guy long enough to know that it isn’t), “we _must_ go forth with his… _wishes_.”

“For _now_ ,” Antok emphasizes, tone audibly much harder, not even trying to hide his displeasure. He glares downward at the glossy surface of the conference room’s deep wooden table as he says it, and Keith’s just glad that he isn’t on the receiving end of that intense stare. He's pretty sure that the department's second-in-command is an immigrant to the country, and that might be why he's taking the directive so personally. After all, it certainly isn't something that's been ordered against dynastic New England WASPs...

Kolivan sighs, and it's a jarringly unexpected reminder of his humanity. Sometimes, Keith forgets that the head of the department’s investigative specialist unit is more man than machine, and that he's got a bunch of feelings at play behind the stiff walls of his sharp gray pantsuit. Keith hasn’t been with the FBI for very long, and sometimes, he feels that his lack of tenure is what causes him to have repeated qualms about some of his job’s responsibilities. But Kolivan has always seemed so certain about the various tasks that are handed down to them from above...

...until now, at least.

“How long'll this directive be in place, exactly?” another agent across the table asks. Keith’s cubicle neighbor — Regris. Keith heard that he’d transferred over from the CIA not too long ago. He’s missing a finger on each hand, if that’s any evidence of a tumultuous former lifestyle. No matter what the truth is, though, Keith’s not about to mess with him. Who in their right mind messes with an eight-fingered man? That guy's _definitely_ seen some stuff.

“We’re unsure,” Kolivan replies, voice no longer very neutral. He and his right-hand man share a pointed glance. “We’re hoping that the House fights it, though.”

Another cubicle-mate, Thace, nods his agreement. “Excuse me for being honest, boss, but... this whole situation’s pret-ty ridiculous.”

Kolivan looks somewhat surprised — Thace isn’t exactly the most wear-his-heart-on-his-sleeve type of fellow — but he lets out a weird little snort anyway. “Honesty excused, Thace.” The department head looks around the conference room, then, his gaze landing for an uncomfortable second on Keith’s face before moving onward.

“I’m sure _many_ of us are inclined to agree with you.”

 

* * *

 

How Lance McClain of Foggy Bottom got pushed onto the FBI’s recently-mandated-but-top-secret watchlist, Keith will never really know. He supposes it’s because the guy originally hails from Havana, even though according to his file, he moved to the States when he was ten, and he’s been naturalized for more than a decade. Guy’s cleaner than a bottle of Windex.

But if Keith’s thinking a little more on the possible conspiracy side of things… well. Lance's apartment building isn’t all that far from Capitol Hill, and historically, Capitol Hill hasn't been a huge fan of Cuba.

Still, Lance seems genuinely harmless. At least from what Keith can see through the other man's laptop’s shitty webcam (he should really get a new laptop, by the way). Sure, the guy has _terrible_ taste in music, and he can’t seem to hold down a relationship for shit, but even if correlation isn't necessarily causation, it appears to Keith that this repeated lack of longevity might just have to do with Lance's penchant for declaring his many, _many_ feelings right in the middle of… _things_.

Keith doesn’t watch. _Ever._ Christ on a bike, he’d rather die. But his government-issued equipment’s sensors are enough to pick up some sounds that make him want to scrub his ears out with bleach, so he’s taken to going on long walks to the bathroom during these particular times. When Lance had been forced onto his radar, he never would’ve imagined that a person working full-time could have so many promiscuous encounters. He's young, sure, but so is Keith, and Keith needs his late afternoon nap without anything remotely pornographic involved.

(Basically, he doesn't really get it. But as Shiro would say... to each, their own.)

While he isn’t getting his heart broken over and over again, Lance works in the financial aid department at the George Washington University, coincidentally just down the street from Keith's office building. He doesn’t really like his job, Keith can tell that much, from the amount that he complains about it every evening when he gets home (usually a little after five PM). Apparently, breaking families’ banks just to pay their kids’ ways through college doesn’t sit well with him. Unlike Thace, Lance’s emotions consistently run on the salient side of the spectrum, and he’s more than prone to talking to himself about them.

He probably doesn't realize that somebody's _actually_ listening.

Keith sighs. Another thing that he never would’ve imagined — this supervisory stint being admittedly interesting. At first, the entire situation had felt like a particularly fucked-up test of his commitment to his position, but he’s still a newbie, so at this point, he’s not about to go up against presidential orders — he isn’t keen on losing his first job out of school. Besides, nearly _everybody_ in the office has been forced to do surveillance on at least a couple of people at one point or another, so it’s not like it's some kind of commitment litmus test. More like a norm. An uncomfortable norm, but a norm nonetheless.

Keith’s been shafted with Lance specifically because they’re close in age (apparently, that makes complete sense in a watchdog situation like this one). He can better understand his hip millennial lingo, or something like that. Still, right off the bat, he’d been able to tell that Lance would drive him nuts, and he’d made Kolivan _very_ aware of this. His boss had just snorted in his face, though. 

But then things had gotten a little more intriguing on the other side of the webcam, enough to make Lance’s obnoxiousness less of a distraction. The guy isn't dealing weapons or drugs or anything crazy like that (which would _definitely_ warrant the surveillance), but he's really into _Grey's Anatomy_ , so this gives Keith an excuse to catch up on the adventures of Dr. McDreamy without being called out for it by his smug-faced older brother. So ultimately, he’d stopped complaining.

Perhaps he spoke too soon, though, because now Lance is in the middle of yet another mind-numbing repeat of an inexplicably-popular break-up playlist on Spotify, and Keith has yet another inclination to bleach his ears. He occasionally Googles the songs’ artists — it’s a lot of people he’s heard of but can’t quite place. Adele, Shawn Mendes, Taylor Swift. Hip millennial, his ass. _These_ people are winning Grammys year after year?

And since _when_ did Destiny's Child disband? Now,  _that's_ true heartbreak.

Speaking of Taylor Swift, the playlist has now landed on a song called “Wildest Dreams.” Keith’s heard this one on the radio — Shiro tunes into some hot tracks station every morning while they eat breakfast together, and it’s essentially Keith's only reference for modern pop. He's always been an eighties rock kind of guy — probably obtained the fascination from their dad. And because James Gunn's made it cool again, he feels just a little bit less like a freak on the rare days when he gets the office aux cord.

Keith’s pretty sure this particular song's an oldie by now (as a result of the Googling, he knows that the artist has put out a new album since then), but Lance is really into it anyway. He’s got a blanket cape type of thing going on, and he’s whipped out a hairbrush, too, using it as an imaginary microphone as he flails his way around his room, the epitome of melodrama.

“Say you’ll remember me,” he wails into the hairbrush. “Standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset, babe—“

Despite the cringey-ness of the entire situation, an amused chuckle escapes from Keith’s lips. Cringey, sure. But in all honesty, the guy's pretty cute, too—

He stops short, freezing in his computer chair. _Cut it out, Keith,_ he warns himself.

The voice sighs back in agreement. _C'mon, Chief. Get it together._

 

* * *

 

About a week goes by, and Shiro offers to drive him into town instead of his usual daily jaunt down the Red from their hometown of Silver Spring, Maryland to Union Station.

“Where are _you_ going?” Keith asks his older brother, somewhat accusingly, but mostly intrigued. Shiro’s a pretty predictable guy… unlike Keith, who’s been called a “loose cannon” on more than one occasion. It goes without saying that it wasn't in a particularly complimentary fashion.

“Job interview,” Shiro explains, flipping on his blinker. Another morning commuter obligingly lets him slide into the next lane with relative ease, an unexpectedly kindly occurrence in the midst of a typical D.C. rush hour.

 _Huh._ He hadn’t mentioned _that_. “Whereabouts?”

“GW,” Shiro replies. “There’s an opening in their career counseling center, and I think a change of scenery would be nice. Get out of the ‘burbs and all that, you know? The area around College Park isn't exactly a happening place, but I'm sure the city'll be a little more interesting...”

Keith's shock effectively tunes Shiro out. _GW. That’s where_ ** _Lance_** _works—_

“Keith?” his older brother says, concerned voice prodding him from his sudden onset of inexplicable panic. “You alright, Chief?”

“Y-Yeah,” Keith mumbles, refusing to look over in his direction, instead opting to stare out the passenger window of the sleek black sedan. Even though _he's_ the one currently working for the government, it's _Shiro’s_ car that has “secret agent” written all over it. If a car could be sexy… well. This car's it. Worthy of a pedestrian James Bond, or something.

“You’re pretty quiet this morning, even for you,” Shiro adds, digging even deeper. “Everything okay at work?”

“Yeah,” he echoes, voice flat. There really isn’t much to report, truth be told. Besides surveillance, his schedule mostly consists of trying (but kind of failing) to finally get through _War and Peace_  (a favorite of Dad's) and maintaining his high score on the office’s shared Tetris server. All in all, the FBI’s turning out to be a whole lot more boring than he’d thought it would be. _Quantico_ had done a bang-up job of catfishing him.

But something about Lance is keeping him going, no matter how hard he tries to shrug it off (and it isn't just because of the awfully entertaining singing and legitimately entertaining  _Grey's Anatomy_ reruns). Keith kind of feels like a great big whale, and his objective’s a barnacle taking up real estate on his side. A little itchy, a little bothersome, but on the whole, not that hard to get used to, or even accept.

Oh, God. He needs some bleach, and stat.

“Think you can meet up for coffee around noon?” Shiro asks, thankfully breaking up his thoughts. “That’s when the interview ends, and I’ll be in your area—“

“Yes!” Keith practically shouts in his older brother’s ear, more grateful than ever before.

“Wow, never thought you’d be so excited to be seen out in public with your dorky older brother!” Shiro chuckles.

Keith just shrugs, absentmindedly fiddling with the ID card clipped to his blazer’s lapel. _Anything_ to get out of his cramped little cubicle... and his gross-ass thoughts.

 

* * *

 

Noon rolls around. Lance hasn’t popped into Keith’s viewfinder since sleeping through three alarms, waking up on the wrong side of the bed, and freaking out upon discovering that he was very, _very_ late for work. He was only gone for a few minutes before crashing back into his studio to rummage around for his missing wallet. Keith could’ve told him that it was wedged between his dresser and the far corner of his desk, but he’s also just an assumedly-unwanted eyeball squatting inside a complete stranger's webcam without said stranger's knowledge, so it was probably a good idea to just sit tight and not say a damn thing.

“Off to lunch,” he says to nobody in particular. Regris barely offers him a nod — guy’s too busy trying to beat his Tetris score, but he isn’t even close. _Nobody_ can beat Keith at Tetris.

He leans down to switch off the viewfinder, grabs his own wallet, and heads out the front door into weak early February sunlight.

 

* * *

 

“You look pasty,” is Shiro’s first comment once they settle in with their matching cold brews. Despite the omnipresent chill squatting low in D.C.’s bones, the brothers never drink anything that isn’t chilled. As their dad used to put it, hot coffee is brewed at the devil’s temperature.

“Thanks, bro.” Keith tips his plastic cup in Shiro’s direction. “Cheers.”

“What do they even have you doing in there?” his older brother asks, voice filled to the brim with concern once again. “You’ve got these huge dark circles under your eyes, too.” He leans in, squinting. “You getting enough sleep?”

Keith reaches out to flick him on the tip of his scrunched-up nose. “Yes, _Mom_. It’s just a lot of staring at computers, ’s’all.” _And spying on people, don’t forget_ ** _that_** _._

He can't hold back a cough, then, so he hastily adds, “I-I’m fine, I swear.”

Shiro’s still frowning, but at least he leans back in his chair. He appraises Keith but says nothing more.

Keith swallows another sip, squirming beneath his older brother’s piercing stare. Sometimes, he wonders if Shiro can read his mind, see directly into his soul. He wouldn’t be surprised. The guy knows him better than anybody else in the entire world.

So he decides to change the subject: “How was the interview—?”

“Hey, hi!” somebody interrupts from above. “Shiro, right?”

Keith looks up into big blue eyes, half-hidden behind a carefully-shaggy sweep of milk chocolate hair, set deep in a perfectly-tanned face. The guy smiles at his brother, but his expression becomes a little more uncertain as he catches Keith’s shocked stare.

“Uh…” he begins, voice wavering slightly.

 _Aw,_ ** _FUCK_** _,_ Keith thinks.

 

* * *

 

Lance interviewed Shiro.

Shiro was interviewed by Lance.

Shiro’s most likely going to be working with Lance, starting next Monday.

It's now absolutely impossible to ignore the fact that the project, no longer safely-put behind a webcam, is a  _person_. With a pretty face. With eyes that kind of hurt to look into for too long. And _God_ , slightly-awkward-but-really-friggin'-cute laughter that makes Keith's dead insides go all warm and tingly despite themselves—

 _Aw,_ **_FUCK_** _._

...Kolivan's going to murder him.


	2. A Rock and a Hard Place

“Look, uh, Keith,” Shiro begins as they stroll past a Whole Foods and a fresh-faced sit-down place that appears to only sell salads (like, what the _hell_ ). “I don’t want to pull out the whole parenting act or anything, but…” He coughs awkwardly.

“You were kinda rude back there.”

Keith says nothing.

“And me wanting the GW job aside… That wasn’t cool, little bro. That guy’s _really_ nice, and… I think you might’ve hurt his feelings.”

Keith still says nothing.

Shiro sighs. Keith doesn’t need to look up to know that his brother’s currently rubbing at the back of his neck — old agitation habits die hard. “Are you _sure_ everything’s okay—?”

Keith whirls on him, shooting him a particularly-noxious glare. “I’ve gotta get back to work,” is all that he says.

His older brother looks taken aback, liquid-dark eyes wide and staring. “O-Oh. Uh. Okay—”

As he practically dashes back off toward his building, abandoning Shiro on the corner of I and 23rd, Keith knows that he’s being a straight-up asshole. But right now, he feels like even a gallon of bleach won’t be strong enough to fix what’s just happened.

Lance is real.

He has to do something about it.

 

* * *

 

“Switch my surveillance subject,” he says, or rather, demands. Only an hour ago, he’d never would’ve dared to speak to Kolivan like _this_. But now he’s smack-dab in the middle of his boss’s office — devoid of any personal touches and lined with thick Berber carpet that somehow makes Keith’s feet feel itchy and dry, even though he’s wearing thick-soled dress shoes — and he feels like his life’s on the line, so skipping the pleasantries is an absolute must.

Kolivan leans back in his supposedly-ergonomic desk chair and cocks a single heavy brow at his junior employee.

“P-Please,” Keith tacks on lamely, suddenly feeling rather small.

“That requires a _lot_ of paperwork, Kogane.” For some reason, it almost sounds like a threat.

 _Seriously?_ He takes a deep breath and levels his gaze with Kolivan’s.

“Situation’s compromised,” he explains shortly.

Impossibly enough, the eyebrow shoots up even higher. “Do tell.”

Keith’s right knee — the injured one — quivers slightly. “I… I m-met him. In real life.”

 _Now_ he’s got Kolivan’s interest. _Took him long enough,_ he thinks irritably.

“Kogane,” his boss begins, eyebrow twitching.

_Uh-oh. Here comes the murder._

But then… Kolivan breaks into an honest-to-goodness _smile_? “That’s _wonderful_ ," he exclaims.

Is Keith dreaming? He has to be dreaming. A fucking _pipe_ dream. “W-Wait. What?”

“Have you established a genuine connection with POI 3V?” Kolivan’s freaky smile’s gone almost immediately, like a fluffy eraser to a whiteboard marker’s writing. It's kind of a relief on Keith's end. He could go the rest of his life without seeing that smile and die a happy man.

“The intel that we could gather from a more _personal_ relationship… Well. The prospects of coming across incriminating info would be  _much_ higher—“

“Hold on a sec,” Keith interrupts, getting his ass fired be damned. “Just a few days ago, you were complaining about the ethical ramifications of this entire operation. But now… you want me to develop a real-life, uh, ‘r-relationship’ with this guy so I can, like...  _spy_ on him?”

Kolivan shrugs. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

Keith just stares at him. The words _I quit_ are suddenly on the tip of his tongue.

“Alright, then. Back to work, Kogane. Those computers aren’t going to watch themselves.”

Pipe dream. He can’t _believe_ this. It’s totally unreal.

 

* * *

 

 **Keith:** Can we talk?

 **Katie:** Sure. What’s up?

 **Keith:** I have fifteen minutes around three-ish. Think you can meet up in the break room on Floor 5?

 **Katie:** I can do that.

 **Keith:** Thanks.

 **Katie:** Everything okay, dude?

 **Katie:** You’re kind of weirding me out lately.

 **Katie:** More than usual, if that’s even possible.

 

Keith stares downward at the glossy screen of his smartphone. Suddenly, the tiny camera lens atop it looks a whole lot more threatening.

 

 **Keith:** I’ll explain later.

 

(As if this situation's at _all_ explicable.)

 

* * *

 

“No fucking _way_ ,” Katie Holt gasps into her mug of freshly-brewed green tea. Whenever he meets up with the software engineer from Floor 3 — probably the closest friend that he has in this hellhole, seeing that they have a bit of a shared past — Keith always ends up making a pot for them both. Maybe it’s because Katie’s got a calming presence (doubtful), and compounded with the tea, it somehow helps him take a deep breath (more likely). He could certainly use some calming right about now. (Even if it’s all in his head.)

“Kolivan’s finally gone off the deep end!”

“Stop sounding so excited about this,” Keith mutters irritably. “It’s an abso-fucking-lute nightmare.” Katie gives him what appears to be a comforting pat on his upper arm, but right now, it's official — he’s way past the ability to be comforted.

“Hey, is this guy cute?”

For a hot second, Keith thinks that she’s talking about Kolivan, but then he realizes what she _really_ means. “Jesus Christ, Katie! How can you be asking me _that_ —“

“So he _is_ cute,” she replies, winking at him from behind a set of ridiculously-thick glasses. They aren't just some hipster trend, though — according to Shiro, she's nearly legally-blind, her vision's _that_ bad.

“Oh, _hell_ no.” He glares at her. “You’re crazy.”

“And _you_ think the guy on the other side of your computer screen’s a cutie,” Katie counters. “I’ve seen you get like this before, Chief. Remember that temp guy Rolo? Every time you talked about him, you got that _look_ in your eyes.”

“ _Excuse_ me?” Keith asks, glare intensifying.

“You know. The, like, dopey one.” She bats her eyelashes mockingly. "'I mean, would you look at his hair? His eyes? His smile? Oh, Katie, he's absolutely _gorgeous_ —!'"

“Jesus Christ,” he repeats, dropping his head into his hands atop the break room table and nearly upsetting his own mug. “I knew I shouldn’t’ve texted you. You’re useless.”

He can hear Katie taking a long, drawn-out sip, and then he feels her flick him on the forehead. “Hey—!” he exclaims, coupled with an aggravated wince.

“Careful, Keith,” she says, voice finally serious. “Don’t catch the feels. No matter how much you pretend like you're some kinda heartless bastard... you’ve never been able to run from them for very long.”

He stands up, almost knocking over the sleek white chair that he’d been occupying. "Ergonomic" his ass.

“You’re batshit crazy,” he says once more.

Another long, long sip. Then, she looks up at him, smacking her satisfied lips.

“And _you’re_ a bad liar.”

 

* * *

 

At 5:00 PM sharp, Shiro’s waiting for him at the curb, and Keith’s pretty sure that he’s never been more grateful to see his older brother in his entire life.

“Whoa, kiddo,” he exclaims when Keith throws his arms around his waist, burying his face into his ridiculously-ripped chest. He musses with his hair in response, and all that Keith can do is in the form of protest is let out a small-but-annoyed grunt.

“Long day, huh?”

Keith just nods.

“Let’s go home,” Shiro finally says, pushing him away just a bit so that he can look him in the eyes. For a startling second, Keith can see his father all over his expression. "We can order a pizza, yeah?"

 _Deep breaths, Keith,_ the voice says, and he realizes with a start that it’s not Shiro's after all.

_Everything’s gonna be alright, Chief. I promise._

 

* * *

 

After dinner, they finally get around to doing their veritable mountain of dishes, although Keith knows that it’s because Allura’s coming over later. Shiro’s girlfriend is… well, something else. Even though Keith’s about as gay as the Fourth of July, even _he_ can appreciate her otherworldly beauty. And unlike most people on Planet Earth, she doesn’t annoy the crap out of him.

So basically, she's mystery meat, wrapped-up in an enigma burrito. A _really_ gorgeous burrito. And if she's going to become his sister-in-law in the near-future, it probably won't be so bad.

Still, he isn’t about to stick around while they get all mushy on the living room couch in the middle of an episode of _New Girl_. He’s planning on peace-ing out on his bike, even though his baby drives his older brother absolutely insane. Silver Spring isn't much, and he's been stuck here ever since The Accident, but there are some pretty good paths cutting through Rock Creek. If he goes slowly enough (no matter how much that pains him), nobody will bat an eye, not even the golf course snobs.

"I know your work's, uh, 'classified,'" Shiro begins hesitantly as he passes Keith a particularly-sticky plate. "But you know you can tell me _anything_... right?"

Keith pauses, hands hovering around the sponge. For a weak moment, he imagines spilling every single stinking detail of the op to his older brother:  _My boss has got me doing surveillance on your new co-worker. The one I just met at Starbucks. And now, he's forcing me to possibly spy on him in **person**. It makes me want to jump in front of the Red._

But all he says instead is, "Y-Yeah. I know."

He scrubs for a minute in silence, but then he adds quietly, "I'm sorry about earlier. I think I was just..." He trails off.

_Redirect._

"I'm _really_ happy for you, Shiro."

Shiro seems surprised, but then his expression softens into the warmest of smiles, the kind that feel like a stab directly to Keith's already-suffering heart.

"Thanks, bro," he says. And then he proceeds to flick some soapy water at him.

Keith's eyes narrow, but he can feel his drawn face splitting into an evil grin. "Oh, you're _on_."

By the time Allura rings the doorbell, they're both doused in dishwater... but at least Keith's feeling a little bit better.

 

* * *

 

On Friday morning, a sticky note appears on his desk: _Come see me._

Is he about to get the pink slip? He finds himself crossing his fingers as he makes his way through the cubicle maze toward his boss's office. Surprisingly, he feels like he wouldn't actually mind, although how he'd be able to contribute to his brother's sky-high Montgomery County rent, he has no idea.

He's never felt so conflicted about something in his entire sorry life.

Kolivan closes the door behind him. "Sit, Kogane," he commands, gesturing to one of those sleekly-futuristic chairs in front of his desk.

Keith acquiesces, even though his mind's practically screaming at him not to. This seems a bit like a trap. A six-foot-eleven trap with a giant scar over one partially-blinded eye that's like a sign flashing _DANGER_ directly in his face.

Kolivan steeples his fingers. As usual, his expression's pretty unreadable. But then he leans forward, dropping those fingers to his impressively-neat desk, splaying him atop his paper calendar. Keith stares at the monstrous thing. Who even uses a paper calendar anymore?

"Antok and I think you're ready for the next step."

Keith blinks. That sounds _way_ too foreboding for his liking.

"We're going to tap his phone as well," Kolivan explains. "So you can keep a closer eye on him."

He immediately balks. "No. No way."

Another raised eyebrow. "This is your _job_ , Kogane."

Keith crosses his arms over his admittedly-shaking chest, hard enough that his thumbs are sticking up his armpits in a way that's more than uncomfortable. But at this point, he couldn't care less.

"When you guys hired me, spying on a harmless twenty-something guy wasn't in the job description."

"Well, it is now," Kolivan replies, impassive.

"It's invasive," Keith protests.

"And it's your duty to this country," his boss counters. His voice is filled with warning.

Keith stands up — Kolivan follows suit. They stare each other down like two cowboys in an old Western, except they're unevenly-matched, and they both know that in _this_ situation, Kolivan has every single upper hand possible.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks anyway. His hates how thin and weak his voice sounds.

Something in Kolivan's grizzled face shifts, but then it's back to neutral gear, as smoothed-out as ever, and Keith wonders if he's imagined it. "It's a directive," is all that he says in response.

 _'Directive' my ass,_ Keith thinks. And in that moment, he hates himself more than ever, because he knows deep down that he doesn't want that pink slip after all, no matter the moral consequences.

He _really_ needs this job.

He's going to hell for it.

 

* * *

 

"Pronto," Lance says into his phone around an impressively-large munch of salad from that place that Keith had noticed earlier in the week. He can hear the rush of midday traffic — despite the winter chill, the man must be sitting outside on a lunch break. He wonders if he could look out the office's front-facing window and see him—

"Hi, Lance!" a voice crackles from the other end.

Something in Lance's voice makes Keith think that he's smiling bigger than the sun. "Ay, Vero! Dime, dime."

Subconsciously, Keith presses his new tapper's phone even more closely to his cheek. _Spanish?_ He should've assumed that a Cuban would know how to speak Spanish. He should've been prepped for this!

The voice on the other end — a woman's voice — pauses. But then: "Es oficial."

Lance pauses, too. _Wait a minute._ Keith squints, as if it'll help him hear their conversation better. Is he... _crying_?

"De _ley_ ," the man practically whispers into the phone. "Felicidades, cariñito."

 _'Cariñito?'_  He knows that one. _Does Lance have a **girlfriend**?_

Keith leans back in his chair. Something's buzzing in his chest.

"¿Podrás venir acá?" the woman asks, snapping him out of his pure idiocy.

"Haber..." Lance takes a pensive-sounding bite. "Creo que... no."

All's quiet on the other end of the line, until the woman — Vero — lets out a short, "Oh."

"Lo siento muchísimo, Verónica," Lance says quietly. "Pero las leyes en este momento son muy... _estrictas_."

Vero sighs heavily. "Entiendo." She doesn't sound very happy.

"Cualquier cosa, me avisas, okay?" Another pause. "Esto me hace tan feliz."

The woman giggles. "Yo también."

"Carlito es un hombre muy afortunado."

"Tú lo sabes, hermanito."

Keith puts the phone face-down on his desk and reaches up to rub forcefully at his aching temples. He doesn't want to hear the rest.

Lance's older sister is getting married. From the incoming phone's area code, Keith can tell that she's in Cuba. And Lance... Lance can't go. Because of the current travel laws.

Suddenly, he has the strongest urge to stick his fist straight through his monitor.

 

* * *

 

It's his afternoon fifteen minutes of liberty from his computer screen, and somehow, he's wound back up in the break room. He can tell that from behind those huge glasses, Katie's assessing him, and the unprecedented amount of concern in her honey-colored eyes is not unlike Shiro's.

"POI 3V already breaking your heart?" she asks, but with very little teasing lacing her tone.

He thinks back to Lance's sad voice cutting through the wiretap. At this point, it's more than possible... but not exactly in the way that she thinks.

"I can't do this, Katie," he whispers into his mug of tea. He's stuck a bunch of ice cubes in it. No devil's temperature today.

"Did you talk to Kolivan about it?"

"Yeah. He doesn't give a flying fuck, though."

"Probably concerned about hitting that new quota," Katie muses. She takes a sip of her own beverage. "Apparently they're really cracking down on your department."

 _Quota?_  His boss hadn't mentioned _that_. "What quota?"

"Executive order," Katie explains, throwing in an eye roll. "President's trying to catch as many people as possible in 'the act.'"

"The act of _what_?" Keith exclaims. Once again, his wide gesture nearly knocks over his tea. "I'm one hundred percent sure that ninety-nine percent of these people are living absolutely normal lives. Why's this guy so hell-bent on invading them?"

"You think _I_ know?" His co-worker rolls her eyes. "Dude's crazy. Sooner he's out of office, the better."

"Argh." Forehead to the break room table. He doesn't care that it's probably swimming in icky germs (that sounds like something Shiro would say, ugh). Right now, he doesn't care about anything...

...except, unfortunately, the life and times of Lance McClain.

He can feel Katie's eyes all over him, but what she ends up saying isn't what he'd expected. "Come out with me tonight."

Forehead off the table. "Huh?"

"My friends and I, we're going bowling. Quiznak Allies, over by Navy Yard. Come with us."

"Weird name."

" _You're_ weird, too," she reminds him, voice surprisingly affectionate. "You'll fit right in. I promise." She gives him a reassuring pat on the arm to emphasize it.

After a moment's consideration, he groans out a reluctant, "Fiiine." Mostly because Allura's coming over again, and he's sick of overhearing multiple people's funky-time noises.

(He didn't ask for this shit.)

Katie grins. "I _knew_ you had it in you to let a little loose, Chief."

 _Does_ he, though? Keith gets up to wash his mug out in the break room's impossibly-clean sink.

"Don't count your chickens," he recommends, somewhat darkly, over his shoulder.

She just laughs at him in response. "See you at nine."


	3. Speak of the Devil

“Where are _you_ going?”

Keith looks into the foyer's hallway mirror — Shiro’s staring at him over the back of the blocky living room couch. Minimalist everything in the apartment these days — something about Allura’s “aesthetic.” That’s what his older brother gets for dating an Insta-famous interior designer. (But no matter what, she won’t be getting her hands on _his_ room, _ever_.)

“Out,” he replies, straightening his jacket. Red leather, to match his bike. It’s the most expensive item of clothing that he owns, and Katie’s going to give him hell for it, but he’s wearing the damn thing anyway. It’s the boost of confidence that he needs to survive a night out on the town with near-strangers.

Beneath its old slash of a scar, Shiro’s broad nose wrinkles. “With _whom_?”

“Friends.”

“Wait.” His older brother looks confused. Surprised, even... but _clearly_ pleased. “Really?”

Keith rolls his eyes so hard that he’s pretty sure that he can see the back of his skull. “Are you done? Is this over?”

“Is what over?” Shiro’s laughing at him. So pleased. Keith kind of wants to punch him. _Jerk._

“The interrogation. Is it over?”

“Oh, leave the boy alone, won’t you?” a voice floats from the kitchen, accent crisp and refined. Allura sticks her head around the counter, clouds of starlit hair dangling over the side. “He’s twenty-three. He can go out with friends without you poking at him!”

“Fine, fine,” Shiro chuckles. “I won’t poke at the apparently-popular bear.”

“You better fucking not,” Keith mutters. He runs a hand through his hair, but it flops forward into his face anyway. He blows a puff of air upward. Still flops. _Ugh._

“Swear jar,” his older brother says, expression immediately somber.

“I don’t have any cash—“ Keith begins to argue.

“Well.” Shiro stands, leaning on the back of the couch. “Looks like you can’t go out.”

Keith rolls his eyes again. He knows when his older brother’s being an ass just for fun. If it was the _real_ deal, there wouldn’t be that mischievous sparkle in his dark eyes.

“Bye, Mr. Bossypants.”

“Wear your helmet—!”

He slams the townhouse’s front door and goes around the side to the car park, somewhat reluctantly buckling his helmet as he does so. If his hair was having issues before, this certainly isn’t going to help matters.

 

* * *

 

The ride back into D.C. isn’t as bad as he expected it to be, February windchill included, and it’s sweet relief to finally be alone, his thoughts all his own, nothing but himself and his motorcycle and the open road. No big brother, no Big Brother, no Lance wiggling around in front of him to a whiney Ed Sheeran song in his sock-monkey footsie pajamas that show off his bubble butt—

 _FUCK._ He’s so fucked. Brightwood flies by, then 16th Street Heights, and he’s still thinking about Lance’s Jon Snow-worthy ass. Like, a perfect Fibonacci spiral. Not that he’s actually seen it in the flesh. Even though he definitely _could_ , he’s not about to sneak a peek. Because at this point, the entire operation's just so messed-up, and here he is, head (and maybe heart) completely devoted to a guy that he knows way too much about but has never really met.

Speaking of his heart. It’s currently threatening to beat right out of his chest, and it’s not just from the adrenaline rush provided by his zoom down the 29. He veers off into the shoulder, much to the consternation of the eighteen-wheeler behind him (why in the fresh hell is there an eighteen-wheeler on a back route?). The driver whales on its horn as he careens past him. No time to focus on _that_ , though — Keith shoves his kickstand down into the dirt, tugs off his sweaty helmet, and drops into a crouch, elbows to his knees, head in his hands.

He can’t go up against Kolivan and his stupid quota, _that_ much is clear.

He can’t quit — freakish ethical dilemma aside, it’ll look _terrible_ on his résumé. And rent. He needs to help Shiro pay the rent.

But most importantly of all, he absolutely, positively _can’t_ crush out on Lance McClain.

 _Talk to Shiro,_ the voice whispers in his ear. By now, he’s adjusted to the fact that he’s probably going insane, and he might as well admit that it’s his dad’s voice, and that it’s been there all along, even though The Accident's nearly five years long gone.

_Talk to your brother. He can help you, Chief—_

“Shut-up,” Keith hisses back, effectively cutting it off. “Shut-UP.”

He stands up, doing a quick lap around his bike, shaking out his quivering hands. His knee feels stiffer than usual — is there rain in the forecast? He looks up at the sky — in the distance, the sunset’s absolutely brilliant. The horizon looks like it’s on fire. By the time he gets into D.C., though, it’ll be gone.

 _Breathe,_ his dad’s voice chides him. _Just breathe._

He does. And then he gets back on the bike and rides off, cowboy-style, into the setting sun.

 

* * *

 

“CHIEF!” Katie hollers at the top of her lungs as soon as she spots him warily entering Quiznak Allies. He assesses the glow-in-the-dark carpet, the greasy walls, the slowly-spinning disco ball overhead…

…and decides that he likes the place more than he thought that he would. It reminds him of home. His _real_ home. There’d been a place _just_ like this down the main street in his one-horse town.

“You actually showed!” his co-worker crows, skidding around a barstool and nearly crashing into him, wrapping her skinny arms around his waist. “I can’t believe it!”

First Shiro, now her. Jesus. Nobody has even an ounce of faith in him these days. He tells her as much.

Katie pulls away from him, clearly amused. “C’mon,” she says, tugging at his arm. “I want you to meet my friends.” Then she stops, staring downward.

“Is this… _leather_?”

 _Kill Bill_ sirens are going off in his head. _Here comes the mockery—_

“You look _hot_ ,” she whispers, almost reverently. “Like, _damn_.”

He can’t help it — he blushes almost as scarlet as the jacket itself. “Th-Thanks,” he mumbles, rubbing forcefully at his neck, a total Shiro move.

“Like, you’re not just Shiro Lite anymore,” she elaborates.

His embarrassment turns sour beneath a glare. “ _Excuse_ me? What in the flying fuck does _that_ mean?”

Katie’s older brother Matt was Shiro’s roommate at West Point for a few years. Still, Keith had never come across his co-worker in-person until they’d been coincidentally stuck together post-grad in the same office space. But that didn’t mean that she hadn’t encountered Shiro previously, and despite their massive age difference (although Keith can’t exactly pin it down, seeing as nobody seems to know how old she really is), apparently, she’d had a _serious_ thing for him.

Cute stuff… but unfortunately, the only speck of dirt that he has on her. For _now_ , anyway. He'll acquire more, mark his words.

She waves a dismissive hand at him, pulling him back into the present. She looks really pretty tonight, and Keith realizes that he’s never seen her with make-up on before (or, at least, out from under nausea-inducing fluorescent office lighting). Her fluffy honey-blond hair, a near carbon-copy of the shade of her eyes, is pulled-up into tiny space buns, revealing sharp cheekbones dusted in neon-green highlighter and more earrings than he can count on one hand.

 _Huh. Who knew._ Allura has some competition in the piercings department.

“You just look good in your own right,” she explains, dropping him a wink. “Now, c’m _on_ already. My friends are _dying_ to meet you.”

 _'Dying?'_ Hoo boy. This night's going to be a doozy, he's already certain.

As she drags him through a surprisingly-large crowd over to their table right in front of one of the overly-shellacked lanes, he immediately recognizes Matt. It isn’t hard — he and Katie look _very_ similar, even though he’s only really met the guy a few times (but he's tagged in a bunch of Shiro's Facebook photos, so his appearance isn't wholly unfamiliar). The large man chuckling next to him looks to be about Keith's age, definitely older than Katie. He’s got shaggy dark hair falling over a traffic cone-level orange headband and kindly eyes despite his somewhat-intimidating size. On his arm is a girl that looks to be even taller, with huge hoop earrings and a big smile carved deeply into her brown face, as if she uses it at every possible second. And then—

_Holy. Fucking. Shit._

_Swear jar,_ some distant part of his brain hears Shiro saying. But it’s too busy being drowned out by more _Kill Bill_ sirens.

The big guy looks up to see them arriving and shoots them a massive grin. “Hey!” he exclaims, leaning across the table and sticking out a beefy hand. “I’m Hehu, but you can call me Hunk.” He pauses under Keith’s jaw-drop stare.

“Uh, I mean, not _that_ kind of hunk. It’s just a nickname.” The tall girl giggles behind a polite hand, immediately reminding Keith of Allura.

“Oh, whatever. You must be the infamous Chief! Er. Keith.”

Keith doesn’t return the offered handshake. He’s too busy staring at none other than _Lance_.

And Lance is staring right back. Gelled-back hair and big blue eyes and _everything_.

Keith kind of wants to die. But then Katie pointedly elbows him directly in the ribs, and he snaps back to reality, because he needs to, because the situation calls for it, and _OH MY GOD KEITH WHY ARE YOU SWEATING—!_

“Y-Yup,” he stutters. “That’s me.”

“Pleasure to finally meet you, Keith,” the tall girl says. “Pidge talks about you _all_ the time. I’m Shay.”

“H-Hi.” _Who’s Pidge?_

“You already know Matt,” Katie says with another dismissive wave, which causes her older brother to pout.

“Howdy, Keith.” Keith nods at him as casually as he can under the current circumstances.

“And this,” she finishes triumphantly, “is _Lance_!”

Keith doesn’t even need the man’s file pulled-up in front of him — at this point, he knows it by heart. _Lance McClain Acosta de la Cruz. Age twenty-three. Born in Varadero, Cuba on July 28th, 1994 to Quinn McClain and Mónica Acosta. Immigrated to Miami, Florida in 2004 with mother and younger sister Althea. Naturalized in 2010. Attended Miami-Dade County Public Schools and the University of Miami. Graduated with a degree in business administration in May 2017. Moved to Washington, D.C. on July 1st, 2018 under the employ of George Washington University—_

Lance seems to have gotten over the shock that he and Keith appear to be sharing. His tone is curt as he says, “We’ve met. At Starbucks.”

It’s like a bullet to the chest. Still, Keith can’t stop staring at him. He’s seen him before. But this time, somehow...

It feels even real-er.

“O-Oh.” Katie looks between them. “Uh. Okay.”

“Small world, isn’t it?” Hunk asks, lightly but nervously. His face is just as confused as everybody else’s. The awkward tension in the air couldn’t be cut by even the sharpest steak knife.

“I sat in on his older brother’s job interview at GW about a week ago,” Lance explains. He sounds so serious. This is _nothing_ like the bubbly, goofy guy that Keith knows—

 _You_ ** _don’t_** _know him,_ his father’s voice warns. _Keith._

“N-Nice to see you again?” Keith offers.

"Wait a hot sec." Pidge's eyes are all over them, he can tell, even though he's currently attempting to see if he can burn a hole through the gum-stained carpet if he stares at it hard enough. " _You're_ Starbucks Jerk, Keith?"

 _'Starbucks Jerk?'_  Wow. (Well, technically, he deserves a lot more than just that.)

Lance sucks down an exaggerated slurp of a blue-raspberry slushee parked in front of him. It’s taller than his own long face. Keith can see where his tongue’s poking out that it’s tinged the exact same shade of blue—

“Bowling?” he asks, voice tragically high and thin.  _Please, somebody, anybody, put me out of my misery._

Matt casts a wary eye around the hushed table, then shrugs. “I’m game.”

 _God bless you, Matthew Holt,_ Keith thinks as he escapes to the shoe counter to get his foot sized by the clearly-apathetic pink-haired girl blowing bubbles behind the register.

 

* * *

 

Surprisingly enough, Hunk’s a pretty bad bowler (Keith would’ve counted on his large size to give him some extra strength behind the ball). Shay’s too busy laughing at her (probably) boyfriend's antics to clean-up well, either. Katie and Matt are neck-and-neck, but in a non-threatening sort of way (in other words, perfectly average), but Lance…

Keith can’t really bring himself to look at Lance, but he _does_ know that the guy’s _really_ good, with markedly-sharp eyes. He even knocks over some candlesticks, although how the physics on _that_ works, Keith has no effing clue. It’s a little scary. It's a lot of attractive. But Keith’s better, and it appears to be driving Lance _crazy_.

“Seriously?” he exclaims after Keith’s score passes 250 on their third game in a row. The other man nearly tosses his galaxy-swirl ball straight into the air in a fit of exasperation, which would've been disastrous for everybody involved. “He’s cheating, Pidge! Satan has his soul!”

Katie winks at him. “You just need to get your head in the game, Lance-y Lance.”

But when Keith returns from successfully rolling to his spot holed-up next to her, she shoots him a particularly-noxious glare. “What’s _with_ you tonight, ya weirdo?”

He still wants to die, but he figures that isn’t the best response to her question, and neither is the truth, so he just resorts to, “N-Nothing.”

“You’re being a freak around Lance,” she complains at hiss-level. “Your weird emo moodiness. It’s rubbing off on him. I can tell." She cuts her gaze toward her friend, pursing her lips.

"It's why he's getting so agitated about the game and stuff. He isn't usually this... competitive.”

 _Wait,_ ** _what_** _?_  Keith nervously assesses Lance. He _does_ seem more aggressive than usual...

“What’re you saying?”

“He thinks you _dislike_ him,” she explains, enunciating carefully to make him feel even worse. Her eyes are way too big. She looks like an owl. Keith decides right then and there that he doesn’t really jive with owls. They make him feel guilty.

“That kind of thing… messes with his mind, sometimes," she elaborates, vaguely enough, but meaningfully enough, too.

_Oh._

_OH._

Suddenly, his mind's flashing back to a relatively-recent scene. Lance in his messy bed with the _Star Wars_ sheets, listening to "Water Under the Bridge" by Adele and having a heart-to-heart with his stuffed lion (she goes by "Blue").

"It's okay if she doesn't like me, right?" he'd asked the lion. "Vero says not everybody has to like me all the time."

Keith had stared into the monitor as intensely as if the scene in front of him was Denny and Izzie and that stupid dress all over again. He'd almost missed the man adding on, "Not everybody's gonna like me, no matter how hard I try."

Lance had flopped backward onto his sheets, then, coming face-to-face with a wrinkly Darth Vader. "So why does it hurt so much?"

Keith blinks, hard, back into the present. And then, despite everything that his head is screaming bloody murder at him _not_ to do—

"I'll go talk to him," he hears himself saying.

Katie looks a little _too_ pleased at that. It's eerily reminiscent of Shiro. "Good idea, Chief. Maybe throw in an apology while you're at it?"

He has no idea how to do this, but he's pretty sure that kicking things off with, "Hey, I'm the FBI man who spies on you every morning while you eat your Reese's Puffs," isn't the best idea. But he'll think of something. He always does. He can sweet-talk his way out of this, and then, it’ll all be over, debts paid. And tomorrow at work, it'll be like nothing ever happened at all. Personal guilt gone, and he can go back to his _Grey's_ watching in complete peace.

But just as he gets up to go, he remembers something that'd been pressing at the back of his mind.

"Wait a minute." He turns on his heel (which, between the soft sole of the bowling shoe and the slipperiness of the floor, almost causes him to lose his balance and completely wipe-out in front of a bunch of rowdy high-as-the-sky frat bros down on Lane 9). "Who's... Pidge?"

"Pidge?" Katie's freckled cheeks pink. "I don't know _what_ you're talking about—"

"Ready for another round, Pigeon?" Hunk calls out. "I think I've finally got what it takes to beat Chief Keith!"

Even though they're near-strangers, Keith feels oddly comfortable smirking in Hunk's direction. (The guy's _way_ too easy to get along with. Where has he been all of Keith's life while he was pretty much friendless?)

"In your dreams, man," he replies, tone cheeky.

To Katie, he mouths, _Pigeon? Really?_

She just flips him the bird (heh). _Long story,_ she mouths back.

Keith grins. More dirt. At least _one_ aspect of his evening's turning out well.

Hunk rolls his head, cracking his fingers. "Okay, then, buckaroo. This is on like Donkey Kong!"

"I-I'll be there in a minute!" he calls back, stalling, because he's still trying to scope the area out for Lance... who suddenly seems to have vanished. But then he thinks that he catches the end of the man's army-green oversized hoodie slipping out the front and into the night.

"Just gotta, uh... Bathroom!"

And with that, he practically dives over a gaggle of giggling Georgetown Theta girls to scramble for the door.

 

* * *

 

Back at their table in front of the lane, Matt trains an eye on Keith's disappearing back. He checks out his little sister's expression, too. She looks... pensive. And even though her mouth's currently halfway around an onion ring, she isn't chewing.

Matt shakes his head. _Abnormal._

He takes out his phone and sends a text.


	4. So Fucked

"Hey!" Keith hollers at the tail-end of the green jacket that's currently slipping away from him through the murky darkness of Quiznak. "Hey, L-Lance, wait up—!"

 _OOF._ Straight into the hard-as-rock chest of a woman that could give even Shay a run for her money in terms of towering height. She glares down at him, dark eyes spitting embers as she pats her afro back into place. She looks strangely familiar, come to think of it—

"Watch it, punk," she hisses. Or rumbles. Whatever it is, it's scary. He backs away before she has a chance to end his life and keeps on running.

Suddenly, he's outside, and it's a lot colder than he'd remembered. The area around Navy Yard is right up against the Anacostia, and strong mid-winter breezes are rolling straight off it, slapping up against the concrete shoreline with their half-icy, half-mossy hands. He swings his head back and forth wildly, searching the street for Lance, and he gets a nice whip to the face by his very own hair for his efforts.

But then — a light in the gathered darkness, just down the street. It's awfully quiet, but Keith can spot the illuminated wisp of smoky air and a dying, reddish burn.

He takes a deep, deep breath as he strides toward the light. He feels clumsy. He feels weird. Katie was right. He's a weirdo.

 _What're you trying to do here, Chief?_ his conscience asks. As is becoming typical (he's just going to resign himself to it), it sounds a helluva lot like his dad.  _What're you trying to accomplish?_

He has absolutely nothing of substance to think back at it. So he just concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other, not tripping on the exposed gutter, just making it to the corner where he sees the light—

Another deep breath.

"...Lance?"

"Aw, crap," Keith overhears him muttering.

Keith crosses the street just in time to witness the other man stubbing out his light. He stares at the dead cigarette, still spilling some sparks onto the shadowed pavement. It's another one of those times where he's being shocked into remembering that he doesn't know Lance like he thinks that he knows him — he _never_ would've guessed that he smokes...

He leans up against the wall, making even less than the minimum amount of eye contact possible, and then he does something that makes him want to punch himself.

"So... you're a smoker."

Lance's head jerks up. His smooth hair isn't as shaggy as usual tonight — it's slicked-back into that David Beckham haircut that everybody and their mother (well, technically, not "mother," but the hyperbole seems fitting) seems to have these days. Still, his startled movement makes his fringe flop forward into his face...

...and Keith's absolutely _terrified_ by how badly he wants to reach upward and push it back into place. It would be _so_ easy—

"Not usually," the other man responds. Tone still curt. Keith knows that he deserves it. Hell, he deserves much more. He can't believe that he actually has the nerve to be talking to this guy face-to-face. His dad's probably rolling over in his grave right now.

It's then that Keith notices how red Lance's eyes are, and a small part of him wonders what exactly had been rolled into the papers that'd been pressed-up against the other man's lips just moments before. But the hushed air around them doesn't smell like the stairwell of his freshman dorm — it was just a good old Virginia Slim, nothing out of the ordinary.

"Just one of those times?" Keith hears himself asking. _What the **hell**._

Lance chuckles nervously. This is hardly the boy that dances around his cramped-but-homey red-brick studio apartment belting out "Flame" by Tinashe at the top of his lungs. And it makes Keith feel even shittier than before.

"S-Sorry, I—"

"Hey, it's... it's cool." Lance side-eyes him. It's way too much. His heart's giving out. He might as well drop dead, right here, right now. Anything to escape that earnest ocean-eyed gaze.

"Look, man, this might be kinda forward, but... I'm going to assume you're just as socially-awkward as me, and that's what all this, uh, _weirdness_ is all about." Even though it's getting _really_ dark, Keith can see the faintest tinge of pink spreading across the other man's cheeks.

 _You don't know the half of what this is all about,_ Keith thinks to himself.

"You're... You're right," is what he says aloud. "That's... That's it. Y-Yup. All of it."

 _Shameless._ He can almost hear his dad chiding him for lying. He's _definitely_ going to hell.

"Oh!" Lance visibly relaxes. "Oh! Okay. So you don't hate me, then."

Keith thinks back to a blue stuffed lion and _Star Wars_ bedsheets. "Of _course_ I don't." And then, to put on a show even further—

"I don't even know you!"

Well, that isn't a _complete_ lie. And technically, they _did_ meet in-person once before this, although he'd completely tuned-out the other man's conversation with his older brother because his heartbeat had been thudding way too loudly in his ears to keep up.

"Sometimes... I still think about those things anyway," Lance confesses, voice soft and unsure. "S-Sorry, it's dumb, I-I know—"

"M-Me, too," Keith admits. And for once, he's being one hundred percent true. "Not... dumb. Not dumb at all."

Lance's tiny frown slowly slips into a smirk, and that's no good for Keith's already-weakened heart. "You're really good at bowling," he says.

"Just to clear things up, I didn't have to sell my soul to Satan for it."

"Practice makes perfect?"

"Yup."

"So you don't get out much else," Lance clarifies.

Keith squints up at him. Up, because Lance is taller than he'd expected. It's kind of hot. It's going to kill him.

"I beat you three times in a row. Worth every single lonely hour."

Lance squints back at him. And then—

He's _laughing_. Honest-to-goodness laughter. And Keith's officially dead.

"Do you like milkshakes?" he asks the other man. He actually doesn't know this yet. But he _needs_ to, just like he needs oxygen to breathe.

"Y-Yeah, why?" Lance chuckles.

"There's a place on 8th that makes _really_ good milkshakes."

Lance's smirk grows. But all that he says is, "Huh."

"I _really_ want a milkshake," Keith admits. "It'll cure my social awkwardness." (Another truth in the middle of this madness.)

"And... you want me to come with you?" Lance asks slowly. The smirk has infiltrated his voice. It's everywhere. Keith can feel it filling up his eyes and his head and his chest and every single one of his vital organs until they're right about fit to burst.

For his twenty-second birthday, Shiro and Allura took him to get his scuba license off the Chesapeake coast, and during one lesson, he accidentally stepped off of a sandbar, tripping straight into the deep. He'd nearly gotten the bends.

This kind of feels just like that. (Not like he's about to admit it, though.)

"Up to you," he replies, as nonchalant a tone as he can force.

They're finally full-on looking at each other, and that smirk twists into a pure-white smile, practically shining in the dark. It's like Keith's seeing him for the very first time, and unfortunately for everybody involved...

...he likes what he sees.

 

* * *

 

"Twenty questions."

"Okay."

"Who starts?"

Despite wanting to please Lance to a sickeningly-desperate level, Keith doesn't like where this is going. Even though it's been established that he doesn't _know_ know Lance, he _does_ know certain things about him. Like the fact that he flosses every single night while he does his Ms. Soho pore peel, and makes smoothies out of fruits and vegetables that Keith didn't even know existed, and cruises through Netflix Originals at an alarmingly-fast rate when he's upset (usually with a glass of red wine on the side).

Also, he seems to _really_ like getting his hair pulled during—

Keith dives for another sip of his milkshake. He'd gotten vanilla with a shot of some kind of liquid courage — he hadn't been paying too close attention to the menu as they'd ordered, but a lot of the milkshakes at Ted's are spiked ones. He'd been too busy staring at Lance's hands. They're _really_ big.

Another too-quick sip. (As if _that's_ going to fix things.)

"You start," he says, trying his hardest to drown out the buzz of his wicked, _wicked_ thoughts.

"Cool," Lance declares. He seems _way_ more cheerful out here, ensconced in a high-backed booth within the low-key bar's quieter atmosphere, away from the mobbing crowds and blaring jukebox tunes and close darkness of the bowling alley.

_Noted._

"If you could wake up tomorrow with one superpower, what would it be?" he asks, somewhat dramatically. He snags one of Keith's waffle fries as he does so, biting down on it with a crispy munch. "Oh, yeah, can I have one of your fries?"

Keith laughs. (Another sign of impending doom — when Shiro steals his food, he _hates_ it, but Lance doing it doesn't bother him at all.) "That isn't a 'yes' or 'no' question."

"Guess we play by different rules," Lance observes. He stirs his milkshake. Chocolate with Kahlua. It looks amazing.

"Guess we do." Keith thinks, then answers with, "Super speed." Technically, he'd want to be invisible 24/7, but that probably isn't shareable first date material—

_THIS. ISN'T. A. DATE._

"Typical."

"Excuse me?"

"Plebeian answer," Lance scoffs.

"Says who?" Smirk, smirk, smirk. Keith nearly coughs up his milkshake. "Wh-What'd you have, then?"

"Flight," Lance responds immediately.

"That's a normy answer, too!" Keith protests. "And here you are, making fun of me."

"Not making fun," Lance counters. "Hey, can I take your cherry, too?"

Can a person die twice? It takes Keith a whole five seconds to register what the other man _really_ means. "S-Sure." He nearly misses Lance's outstretched hand and dumps the slippery maraschino cherry on the bar's shiny wooden floor. He'd never liked them.

Does the fact that Lance likes them make them compatible?  _Please don't tie the stem into a knot-thingy with your tongue like they do in the movies, you'll make me—_

"You okay, Keith?" Lance asks, pulling him back into reality. "You looked like you were, I dunno, fighting with yourself or something." He takes in Keith's open-mouthed expression and laughs softly.

"I'm kidding. I don't, like, think you're crazy." He eyes him, suddenly serious. "Unless, you know, you are. That's cool, too."

"We're all a little bit crazy, aren't we?" Keith asks quietly.

Lance looks taken aback, and Keith could punch himself. _Great. He already knows you're a weirdo. Now he's gonna think you're a **lunatic** —_

"That's fair," he says casually, tipping his milkshake glass in Keith's direction.

Keith swallows down another fry to buy himself some time. He barely tastes it as it goes down — he's too busy watching Lance's Adam's apple bob in his throat as the other man sips his own drink.

"How many siblings do you have?" he asks. He knows the answer to this one, but should it ever come up in conversation, at least he now has a way to officially cover his tracks. Of knowledge. Yeah, justify the knowledge. Knowledge of all of the stuff that he knows from the file—

"Three," Lance responds promptly. He ticks them off with long, skinny fingers. "Verónica's thirty, Erick's twenty-seven, and Althea's eighteen."

Yup. Just like the file says. Keith feels a slight twinge of _something_  — he's wasted a question on something that he already knows. But all the same, it somehow feels way better to learn things about Lance from the man's mouth itself, not just from a piece of paper or a shitty webcam screen.

"You?" Lance asks.

Keith's nearly forgotten that his input is required to play the game. "U-Uh. Right. Yeah. Um... One. And a half. I guess."

Lance's eyebrow quirks. He leans in a little bit closer below the cozy yellow light of their shared booth. "Can I use another question to ask you to elaborate?"

"N-No, I can, uh, just tell you." Keith frowns, trying to decide how best to explain things. "Y'see... My brother Shiro and I, we share the same dad, but I've been raised with him since birth, so he's the one I consider my full-on sibling. We still live together now. But Acxa..." Even mentioning his half-sister's name twists something weird in his gut.

"We share our mom. But we... don't really see each other. Anymore."

"Oh." Lance leans back. "Okay." He doesn't press. Keith's eternally grateful for it.

"Can I go again?" he asks the other man quietly.

"By all means."

"Why do you guys call Katie 'Pidge?'"

"Isn't twenty questions supposed to be, I dunno, personal stuff?"

"Well, it's just like you said..." What is he doing. Why is he leaning in closer. Why is he staring deeply into Lance's widened eyes—

"I play by my own rules."

 _What you're playing is a dangerous game, Chief,_ his father's voice whispers warningly in his ear. He's far too elated by the subtle blush slowly popping up in pockets across Lance's tanned cheeks to pay it any mind.

"We-ell... When I was in college, business students had this _really_ big group presentation for our first-year final, and everybody had to do it to pass onto the next step of the program. You develop a product, you have to come up with a marketing campaign, and if you actually _physically_ create it, that's bonus points. So I got my roommate — Hunk — and his friend — who you know as Katie — involved because they were engineering students and they knew their way around the 3-D printers better than me..."

Keith's fascinated by the way that Lance tells stories. The hand gestures, the facial movements, the... _everything_. It's like watching him on-screen had been on silent, in black-and-white. Having him here, right across the table from him, though...

Suddenly, it's like everything's exploded into technicolor.

"...And on the way to give the presentation in front of pretty much, like, _everybody_ esteemed in our fields at the university..." Lance pauses for dramatic effect.

"A pigeon pooped on her head."

"No fucking _way_." Keith drags a waffle fry through a puddle of ketchup, smirking the entire time. _HAH. DIRT._

"Yup." Lance triumphantly steals another fry, too. "Not her best and brightest moment. Of which there are many, I'm sure you know. But we can't all be perfect."

"Go to _bed_." He's straight-up chuckling now, having abandoned the fry to clutch at his heaving sides. He can perfectly imagine the expression that must've graced his co-worker's face — ultimate displeasure, evidenced by pursed lips and squished cheeks and narrowed eyes. "That's _amazing_! Sucky, but... amazing."

"And th-that's why we call her, uh, P-Pidge. 'Cause it's short for pigeon," Lance summarizes. His voice seems to have given out slightly — Keith's head jolts upward as he notices the sudden tonal change. The other man's stare is a _lot_ more intense than it had been just moments ago.

 _Is there something on my face? In my teeth? Is there—_ Keith begins to think frantically.

"You have a really cute laugh," Lance blurts out.

Lance, three kills. Keith, zero. He should really just stick to bowling. But then he notices that Lance is blushing again... so maybe he isn't _too_ bad at this whole flirting thing himself.

Wait a minute. Flirting. Are they flirting? Is _this_ flirting?

Is he _really_ flirting with POI 3V? He's pretty sure that this isn't what Kolivan had in mind.

"Ask another question," he practically shouts in Lance's face, a not-so-subtle way of disguising his sudden panic.

"Oo-kay." The other man looks taken aback. "Well, uh, let's see... Oh! I know! Why does Pidge always call you Chief?"

 _Wrong question._ Keith takes a deep breath. "How... How deep are we getting into these questions, exactly?"

Lance eyes him out from under his ridiculously-fluffy eyelashes. They're like _girl_ eyelashes (although Shiro's always said that Keith's are pretty long, too). It's kind of adorable, kind of sexy. Keith immediately decides that it should be banned altogether. Made illegal. He'll ask Kolivan first thing on Monday morning.

"You don't have to tell me anything," the other man reminds him. "I know we aren't, like, friends or anything. We're basically strangers."

_But I'm the eyeball behind your computer screen... so **you** don't feel like one to **me**._

"It's a nickname that my dad gave me," Keith explains quietly. "Before he died."

"...Oh."

"Y-Yeah." He chuckles once again, this time awkwardly. "Chief Keith. My brother sometimes calls me it, too, still, so... I guess Katie picked up on it at some point or another." He gulps down a particularly-large gulp of milkshake, ignoring the sting of the alcohol up his nostrils. It's probably just some kind of wimpy dessert liqueur mixed in there, more sugar than anything else, but unfortunately, he's always been a _terrible_ lightweight.

"That's... That's... Thanks for, er, sharing with me. I... I appreciate it."

He looks up into Lance's furrowed brow. "You sound like a therapist."

Unexpectedly, Lance laughs. "Oh, Jesus, I'd be the worst therapist _ever_!" He leans back in. "I was an RA in college, though. Basically a therapist."

"You'd be a _great_ therapist!" Keith protests. "You're so easy to talk to! And you're _always_ trying to help people when they're struggling, you know, like that time—"

_KEITH._

Thank _God_ for Ghost-Dad in his ear. Because he'd been about to finish with his sentence with:  _That time that sophomore girl freaked out in your office because her grandma died and her inheritance was gonna change her financial aid package and make GW unaffordable but you scrambled to come up with a solution for her anyway 'cause you've got a big, fat heart—_

Keith isn't supposed to know about that. That's a conversation that he heard through Kolivan's tap on Lance's cell phone, which had been sitting out on his desk while the student sobbed into the man's comforting shoulder. What he _does_ know, though, is that currently, he's blushing furiously. If they end up being in the mood for midnight fried eggs, they could cook them right there on his face.

"Look, Lance, I—" he begins to mumble, knee shaking slightly beneath the table—

 

_Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want_

_So tell me what you want, what you really, really want_

 

Lance nearly drops his nicked fry. He looks as startled as Keith feels. The other man stares down at his phone's screen — then, his eyebrows practically shoot-up into his skull.

"Mami?" he asks tentatively into the receiver.

If this was any other day in the neighborhood, Keith would have his tap on blast, listening in on the other side of Lance's conversation so that he could bring back some "intel" to Kolivan. "Intel" being best recipes for ropa vieja (which, Keith was surprised to learn after a quick Google search, doesn't actually mean "old clothes" when it came to Cuban delicacies) and wedding guest list gossip. Lance's family — the people he talks with most — aren't exactly among the likes of Fidel and Che.

And that's what the president's looking for, right? Some kind of proof of dissidence brewing within the country's dark underbelly. But to Keith, that's bullshit. The dissidence is already there, exploding right in front of the president's face. Not coded and scrambled within an innocent phone conversation about whether or not to invite Tía Camila to Vero's ceremony after what she did to Juan Di's wife back in 1996.

But thankfully, the tap's back at home. He's allowed to be off-duty on weekends unless they uncover something major. So Lance's conversation with his mother's blessedly one-sided. Instead, he can just sit back and watch the other man talk. Which is perfectly fine with him, because—

Katie's voice floats to the front of his mind. _Weirdo._

"My mom," he says by way of explanation once he hangs up his phone. He smiles apologetically. "I'm so sorry to do this, but... I need to run home. I've got a Skype call waiting for me, apparently. I'm really—"

"Don't apologize," Keith interrupts, even though realizing that he and Lance are about to part ways is _way_ more painful than it needs to be. "It's getting late anyway."

Even though he does a bang-up job of protesting, Lance foots the bill. "You can pay me back next time," he says, casually enough, but with something... _more_?

Keith knows that he's blushing like crazy as he replies with a quiet, "Okay." (Even though it's fifty shades of not okay.)

"How're you getting home?" Lance asks him. He pulls up the collar of his jacket a little bit higher. That thing looks _way_ too comfortable to be true. Keith's frightened by how badly he suddenly wants to wear it.

"Motorcycle," he practically croaks.

"Whoa." Lance stops short, surprise blooming in his face. " _No_ way!"

Keith just shrugs.

"Motorcycles are dangerous," the other man says.

"So are cigarettes," Keith bites back, a little sassier than he'd intended to be.

Lance's cheeks pink once more (although it might just be because of their close proximity to the restaurant's doorway out into the bitter February cold). "Nervous habit. I'm not, like, a chain-smoker or something, I swear."

"You need a better nervous habit," he replies, trying to keep the apparently-uncontrollable flirtatiousness out his voice. He really does mean it.

"I'm open to suggestions." The other man smirks _the_ smirk. "If I give you my number... will you send me some?"

Keith just stares at him.

"And... we can finish our round of intense personal questioning?" Lance prompts.

More staring.

The other man's smile drops. He rubs an uncomfortable hand through his hair, pushing the gel around in a way that makes Keith want to once again reach up and fix it.

"N-Never mind—" he begins hastily.

Keith practically pushes his cell phone into Lance's face. Technically, he already knows Lance's number. In fact, he knows it by heart... which is pretty messed-up and gross. But still, he's come to realize that getting things from their source is a whole lot better than observing them from afar, and this...

This is one of those cases.

Lance appraises Keith's cell phone, curiously turning it over in his hands. "Where... Where did you even find a Motorola Razr?" he asks, tone nearing reverence. "I haven't seen one of these since fifth grade!" He leans in, then, his grin a little _too_ wide.

"Hey, Keith, are you, like, a drug dealer or something?"

 _I traded in my iPhone for a flip phone just in case I'm being tracked, too,_ he thinks to himself.

"Maybe," he says aloud instead.

Lance's eyes latch onto his. It's so cold outside, but Keith feels so warm.

"Pidge's right," the other man suddenly comments. "You _are_ mysterious."

Keith licks his lips against the cold. "Is... Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

Quirked eyebrow. Cocky smirk. Eyes like a sky on a cloudless day.

"I guess we'll see," Lance says.

 

* * *

 

Keith doesn't make it back to Maryland till almost two, and thankfully, Shiro and Allura are dead asleep. He isn't really willing to be lectured for breaking curfew (something that his older brother claims to be a joke every time that he brings it up, but knowing Shiro, it probably isn't entirely without merit) as he quietly deadbolts the townhouse's front door, lightly pads up the stairwell, and finally makes a dive for his neatly-made bed.

After a quick teeth brushing and a flip of his bedroom lights, he notices that his laptop's still on, the battery whirring a little too quickly for comfort. When he picks the thing up, he nearly drops it due to its unexpected warmth. He pushes it open to reveal—

 _Shit!_  He'd left his feed up from work! His equipment's still focused on Lance's apartment. And _Lance_...

Lance is _still_ awake, lights on and everything. And he's dancing around like an absolute idiot, Blue in tow as he careens around the room with the hugest smile possible splashed across his perfect, perfect face.

Keith's heart thumps around uncomfortably in his chest. He quickly plugs in his headphones, turning up the volume so that he can listen in on this evening's Lance Top Hits.

"I have never been the type to try and grab the spotlight—"

_Hah. Seems unlikely._

"Then you walked in and my heart went _boom_."

Keith freezes. This isn't Lance's typical Spotify fare. This isn't a sad song. This is a song from—

_This is a falling-in-love song._

Slowly, he takes out his headphones, one-by-one. He falls backward onto his bed, but he's still watching Lance twirl around his studio on silent for at least ten more minutes before he carefully closes his laptop's lid.

He flips open his dumbphone and clicks on his contacts. There, sandwiched between Katie and Shiro, is his newest number.

 _Text me,_ Lance had said back in front of Ted's.

Keith holds the phone tightly to his chest as he closes his eyes.

Lance has a Spice Girls ringtone. When he talks to his mom, he lights up. He can put away junky diner food even faster than Keith can.

He thinks that Keith's notable lack of social competence is completely fine.

 

* * *

 

Just as Keith drifts off into an uneasy sleep, he makes a choice.


	5. Conditions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Sorry this is coming to you all so late. I had multiple problems uploading it, including an accidental deletion of about half of the chapter. Some unintentional re-writing involved as a result, hence the delay.
> 
> Also, I just wanted to thank you all for the ~incredibly~ kind feedback I've been getting on this story! I've been in a rough spot personally lately, and all of your encouragements and positive comments really do make my day. So, thank you so much. I hope you'll continue to enjoy! (´∀｀)♡

"Mornin', Chief!" Shiro waves at him from behind the kitchen's island as he rapidly mixes something in a bright plastic bowl.

Keith plunks down onto one of the island's barstools and contemplates the bowl. "Saturday pancakes?" he asks curiously.

"Saturday waffles," his older brother replies promptly, brow furrowed in concentration. "A favorite of the missus."

"The 'missus,' huh?" Keith grins at Shiro. Normally, that would be an automatic gross-out statement. But today, he feels  _good_. Like,  _really_  good. Like he woke up on the proverbial right side of the proverbial bed (even though he'd gotten less sleep than usual as a result of his night out), and that song from  _Legally Blonde_  has become his life’s theme song.

(You know the one.)

"And how  _is_  the missus this fine morning?"

Shiro blushes slightly and, of course, avoids the question. "You want some, too?"

"Sounds good to me." Keith's grin widens as he twists in his chair, pleasantly popping something in his spine as he does so. "Ahhhhh..."

His older brother slowly puts down the mixing bowl, hands splayed atop the counter. "You know... I don't think I've ever seen you  _this_  chipper at such an early hour before. And you got back late last night, didn't you?"

Keith pauses mid-twist. "Oh. Uh."

Suddenly, the song from  _Legally Blonde_  grinds to a stop. He feels strangely guilty, although he can't quite decide why.

"Whoa, not a bad thing!" Shiro exclaims, hands up and placating. "Just an observation." He smiles softly at his younger brother.

"I'm just happy you're happy, 's'all."

He goes back to mixing, then, and Keith silently watches the spoon complete twelve entire rotations before saying, "Hey, Shiro."

The mixing stops again. "Hey, Chief."

"Have you..." Keith licks his lips. He's playing a dangerous game here. He has to be careful.

"Have you ever done something, er... big. Even though your gut keeps telling you not to?"

Shiro's wearing the slightest of frowns. "So you  _did_  get in a fight last night."

 _Wait. What._  "...Huh?"

"Oh!" His older brother's wrinkled brow visibly smooths. "Oh! Okay!" He shakes his head.

"I  _knew_  Matt was jumping to conclusions." He picks the bowl back up, stirring a bit more aggressively this time. If Keith isn't mistaken, he's rolling his eyes (a rare occurrence for Shiro). "Again."

"And you are, too, apparently," Keith mutters. "You  _know_  I don't do that anymore, man."

"I know," Shiro confirms with a sigh. "And I'm sorry."

"Where's this all coming from?" Keith asks, trying to keep his voice as level as possible. He's surprised by how hurt he suddenly feels by Shiro's assumption. He hasn't fought anybody in  _years_. Not since it got him kicked out of the Garrison back home in Arizona for nearly half of his junior year. He'd cleaned up his act, though. Rude awakening and all that. And he'd done a bang-up job at Duke. His political science degree had been hard-earned but well-earned. But now...

...he's  _here_. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, and pinned-down by long-held expectations of his behavior that never seemed to fade, no matter how much he's done over the past five-odd years to counterstrike them.

"I got a text while you guys were out last night," Shiro starts to explain. "Matt saw you crash into some girl at the alleyway and then run out on her, and then she went outside, too, so... He was worried that you were fighting somebody." His older brother pauses, and then begins to add—

"Look, Keith, I really am sorry, that was _super_ unfair—“

To everybody's surprise, including his own, Keith bursts out laughing. He can't help it. He's stretched so thin at the moment, and Matt's such a prick sometimes. "I wasn't fighting anybody, Shiro, I promise," he heaves out between uncontrolled giggles.

"O-Okay," Shiro stutters. And then, a little more sure-footed, "Okay. Okay, that's — that's great, Chief."

"Besides, I'm _not_ about to take on Zethrid in a fistfight," Keith chuckles. "Never  _ever_ , not in a bazillion years."

"Zethrid?" Shiro's back to mixing, but he's still paying attention. He always is. "Who's that?"

"Oh, shit," Keith breathes, because up until that point, he hadn't actually put two and two together to figure out that the gigantic girl that he'd accidentally run into at Quiznak was, in fact, Zethrid. But it  _had_  been. Nobody else in the universe was that stinkin' huge, and the last time that he'd seen her, she'd had that very same afro. But now that his memory's been jogged...

"Have... Have you heard from, uh... Acxa. Er, recently?"

"Acxa?" Shiro reaches out to plug-in the waffle iron. "Like, your sister, Acxa?"

Keith gives his older brother a  _look_. "How many other Acxas do we know?"

"Fair point." Shiro thinks for a moment, pointer finger tapping his scruffy chin.  _He'll probably shave later,_  Keith thinks. The missus can't stand his facial hair.

"No, I guess, not since... well." He shifts uncomfortably behind the island counter. "You... You know."

Keith  _does_  know. "Zethrid's Acxa's best friend," he explains quietly. "So if  _she's_  around D.C...."

"...Gotcha."

Shiro contemplates him, eyes forced neutral, but Keith can tell that there's something else simmering there, just below their liquid-dark surfaces. "You could text her," his older brother suddenly offers.

Keith's shaking his head vehemently before he even finishes his sentence. "Nuh-uh. No way, José."

"No way, José," Shiro echoes absentmindedly, just as the waffle iron pings. "Well, that's pretty serious, then. Case closed."

"Yup," Keith confirms shortly, sneakily reaching out to steal a waffle off the top of the breakfast tray that Shiro's preparing. Probably for the missus.

Ew. He's officially reached the gross-out factor.

"So then who were you chasing?" his older brother asks casually, back now turned toward the juicer.

Keith nearly chokes on a bit of waffle. He then decides that it’s about time to leave.

“Bye!”

“Wait a minute, get back here!“ Shiro hollers.

“Nope!” Keith makes a mad dash for the stairwell, taking them two-by-two.

“You can’t just steal Lu’s waffles, you little heathen! I didn’t raise you this way—!“

He slams his bedroom door, waffle still in tow, and breathes a sigh of relief. He proceeds to sink down to the carpet, back to the door—

_BZZZZZT._

Keith nearly throws his waffle across the room at the sound… but it’s just a text message. From _Lance_.

 

 **Lance:** u down 2 keep playing 20 q’s???

 **Lance:** ;-)

 

It’s like something in his chest just releases, a pent-up balloon gently popping, a light breeze whispering through a midsummer night. He knows that last night (or early this morning) happened, but _this_ …

 _This_ makes it real.

 

 **Lance:** i mean only if u want 2…

 **Lance:** like no pressure

 **Keith:** I’m down!

 **Lance:** ok phew!

 **Lance:** lol

 **Lance:** ur rules or mine???

 

Lance texts like a seventh grade girl. It’s kind of adorable. It’s also the kind of thing that makes Keith want to do something completely idiotic. Like planting a wet one on his Razr’s shitty pixellated screen. (Like, what the fuck.)

Even though he’s very aware that it’s hugely problematic, he texts back anyway.

 

 **Keith:** _Our_ rules

 **Keith:** :)

 

* * *

 

On Monday morning, Keith requests an audience with Kolivan.

“If I'm gonna keep doing this... there need to be some ground rules."

His boss leans back in his desk chair. His grizzled face is impassive. Normally, that would intimidate Keith. But getting this out is more important than anything else in the world to him right now.

"I'm listening."

Huh. Okay. That's a start. "No more webcam."

The tiniest of frowns twists Kolivan's chin, but he doesn't interrupt.

"Phone can stay. For now."

Still no interruption. Keith takes a deep breath, because the final part of his proposal is the dooziest of it all.

"And if I can't find any proof of, uh..." He frowns, trying to remember the exact label that the department had been using to justify their actions.

But Kolivan, speaking up for the first time, supplies it for him. "Dissidence."

"R-Right. That." Another deep breath. "If I can't find any proof of dissidence by the end of this month, we drop his file. For  _good_."

Kolivan gives him a strange look, one eyebrow raised and broad nose wrinkled. "Why exactly are you so adamant about this, Kogane?"

_Because I think I have a big fat crush on the guy._

"Because it's...  _wrong_. _So_ wrong. You and Antok seemed to think the same when you first announced it.” Keith can feel his hands beginning to ball-up at his tense sides. “And for fuck's sake, Kolivan, he isn't about to, I dunno, cause another Cuban Missile Crisis. Like, c’mon!“

Kolivan's look turns hard, and Keith wants to stick his foot in his mouth. "I-I meant… for _Pete's_ sake."

"Sure you did." Kolivan leans even further back in the chair as he speaks up. _Risky business._

Keith sighs. This isn't going well.

"Please," he mumbles. "I'm... I'm _really_ serious about this."

Harder look. But then—

"Okay. Sure."

For the second time in the past few days, Keith's brain completely short-circuits. "W-Wait. Seriously?"

Kolivan's hard look breaks. He's actually offering Keith a tiny smile. Really tiny, but it's there. A little less creepy than last time, but still a tad unsettling in its unfamiliarity. But right now, it's perfectly fine with Keith. In fact, _more_ than fine.

It's _incredible_.

"You're a good guy, Kogane," his boss says.

 _No, I'm not,_  Keith thinks, Lance’s laughing face beneath the low lights of Ted’s flashing in front of his eyes.

It's like Kolivan can read his mind, because his gaze deepens slightly. "Good guys make terrible surveillance agents."

Keith can't help it — he lets out the smallest of chuckles. "Truth be told, I'm okay with that." Then, he remembers—

"I can still work here... right?"

Kolivan finally leans forward in his chair, and Keith lets out a breath that he didn't know that he was holding. "You've still got your job." He pauses. "On one condition."

_Uh-oh—_

"I'm kicking you off Tetris."

Keith blinks. "...Okay?"

"You're too good at it," Kolivan explains. "It's making Regris feel bad. His work performance is suffering."

 _This guy's too much,_  Keith thinks. But as he strolls back into the cube maze, he feels like his heart's about fit to burst anyway.

 

* * *

 

 **Katie:**  Lunch out?

 **Keith:**  Where?

 **Katie:**  Sweetgreen?

 **Keith:**  What's that?

 **Katie:**  You know, the new salad place by the Whole Foods

 **Keith:**  In what world is a salad _lunch_?

 **Katie:**  You have a better idea, Ron Swanson?

 **Keith:**  Chick-fil-A?

 **Katie:**  Don't they hate the gays there?

 **Katie:**  And seeing as we both belong to that club...

 **Keith:**  Touché

 **Keith:**  Friday's?

 **Katie:**  At noon on a Monday?

 **Keith:**  It'll be empty

 **Keith:**  Rapid seating

 **Katie:**  ...

 **Katie:**  See you downstairs in five

 

* * *

 

"So."

"So," Keith echoes as he happily chows down on his cheeseburger.

"Whaddya think of my clique?"

"They seem cool," he offers.

"Just 'cool?'" Katie shoots him a withering stare.

"Wow, a regular Rory Gilmore." Keith puts down his burger. "This must be  _exactly_  the type of look that she warned Jess about back in season two."

Katie just shakes her head. "You watch  _way_  too much TV. You're neck-in-neck with Lance for amount of pop culture references unnecessarily injected into otherwise casual conversations.”

Good thing he put down his burger. He might've choked on it at the mention of Lance's name (he seems to be doing that quite a bit lately). To recover as quickly as possible under her all-knowing bug-eyed stare, he asks, "So, do I call you ‘Pidge’ now… poop-head?"

His co-worker sighs heavily. "He told you, didn't he."

"Sure did," Keith replies cheekily, retrieving his burger and taking a satisfied munch.

"I need a cocktail," she mutters.

"At noon on a Monday?" he mocks. Secretly, though, he files that tidbit away. Yet another clue toward solving the never-ending Guess-Katie’s-Age game…

"Get stuffed." But then her stare gets a little more pointed. "What else did you guys talk about, huh? After you disappeared into the night?"

Choking hazard — he nearly coughs up a lung. "Wh-What? What're you t-talking about?" he stutters.

"You guys ditched, so I'm asking what you did," she says plainly. “As a friend of both parties involved, I consider my curiosity permissible under the circumstances.”

“Those are some five-dollar words you got there.”

Katie isn’t deterred in the slightest. “‘Fess up, Keith. What’d you do?”

"N-Nothing really," Keith mumbles. He gazes downward at his burger. “It was late, I was hungry. He tagged along for milkshakes and fries at Ted’s.”

"So... a date."

His face bursts into a blush. "N-No, _no_ way, it was just, we just, I—"

"Keith." Katie drops her fork into her salad (she'd ordered one anyway, even though Keith had made a point to avoid salads at all costs). "It's okay to have a crush on Lance, y'know."

He shakes his head. "No… it really isn't."

She quirks an eyebrow, her entire face in shadow, backlit by the afternoon sun streaming in through the restaurant's grimy windows. The day's unseasonably warm, and suddenly, smack-dab in the middle of a conversation that he never wants to have, Keith feels unseasonably warm, too.

"Is this about POI 3V?” she asks humorously. "Feel like you're cheating on that cutie, or something?"

 _Oh, my God._  "If only you knew," he mutters darkly. He chomps another bite of burger without tasting a thing.

"Keith..." Her stare turns uncharacteristically gentle. "You know we're _friends_ , right? Not just co-workers. So... if you need to talk about anything..." She trails off, looking at him expectantly.

He could cave right then and there. Just tell her everything. He'd been on the cusp with Shiro just a few days ago. It would be good to get his feelings out on the table. Sometimes, all it takes to solve your own problem is getting another person’s perspective on it. (Well, that was what his therapist used to tell him, anyway.)

But he can't. So he just shrugs. "It's really... It's really,  _really_  hard to explain, I can't just, I mean, I don’t—“

From deep within his suit jacket's pocket, his tapper's phone beeps.

_Shit. SHIT. Ignore it, ignore it—_

Another warning beep. There's an incoming call on Lance's cell phone.

 _You promised Kolivan you'd stay on the wire, Chief. You can't break a promise, especially one you just made._ Who’s voice is speaking to him this time, he has no clue. But whomever it is, it’s definitely correct.

"Can you give me just a sec?" he asks Katie, already making a mad dash for the door. "I'll be right back, I swear."

"Keith, what the—!”

"A _sec_!"

 

* * *

 

"H-Hey."

"Hey."

"What're you, uh, why'd you—" Lance sounds so uncertain, even small. Keith's heart leaps into his throat unannounced.

"Did I leave my black button-down at your place?" the man on the other side of the line asks. His voice is silky smooth, like a swirling puddle of oil on a hot summer sidewalk.

Keith hates it immediately.

"I... I dunno."

"You at work?"

"Yeah."

"Can you check when you get home, then? I need it for a wedding next week."

"O-Oh. Uh. Okay." A deep breath sounds from Lance's end of the line. "Who's getting married?"

"Ezor. And Narti."

All's silent for a moment, but then Lance says, very quietly, "I had no idea."

"Well." The voice on the other end of the line shifts somewhat uncomfortably. "I didn't... I didn't tell you because I didn't know if you'd... Er. Care. Anymore."

"Of  _course_  I still care," Lance replies, still quiet, but Keith can easily uncover the hurt note in his voice. "Tell them... Tell them I said congratulations, okay, Lotor?"

 _Lotor?_  Keith blinks. That name sounds awfully familiar...

He presses the phone even closer to his cheek as he paces around James Monroe Park. He accidentally startles a flock of pigeons when he kicks a loose stone into a nearby storm drain. He glares at them. Why aren't they flying south for the winter or something? It’s been winter for, like, two months already. _Bird brains—_

_FUCK._

Because there's Lance, sitting on a bench at the other end of the bustling green, and he's _staring_ at him. No _wonder_  his conversation had suddenly paused.

 _Talk, you dumbass! He thinks you're on the phone the_ ** _normal_** _way!_ "O-Oh, um, of course," Keith stutters awkwardly into the tapper.

Who in the fresh hell could he be talking to in the middle of a work day? Not Shiro. Shiro's started in Lance's office. Lance could easily figure out that he isn't currently on the phone with his older brother, that'd be so flimsy. All that he needs is somebody who runs their professional world from within their own special little microcosm of unscheduled freedom, liberated from the constraints of the average yuppie’s nine-to-five—

 _Got it!_  "That sounds _really_ good, Lu," he says, quite confidently for somebody who’s talking to nobody. "White drapes. It'll match the white couch. And, uh. Your hair. So if you shed all over it, like you do in the shower drain, nobody’ll notice."

 _What the_ **_fuck_ ** _, Keith._

Suddenly, the person on the other end of Lance's line is speaking up again. "Lance? You still there?"

"R-Right," Lance says. He sounds slightly breathless. Keith chances eye contact with him from across the park, and then—

He's  _smiling_. Smiling at _Keith_.

"I gotta go," Lance explains quickly into his phone. "Key's in the same place as usual. Just let yourself in, 'kay?"

"You're not gonna be there—?"

"Nope. Uh... Gotta work late."

"Well, alright—"

"Bye, Lotor," he says, a little more attentively. "Have fun at the wedding. Really, I mean it.“

"...Bye, Lance."

Less than a second after Lance hangs up the phone, he's waving frantically at Keith. "Keith, hey!" he hollers from across the park.

Keith tries to make casual strides instead of hapless stumbles toward the other man as he crosses the slightly-slushy lawn. "H-Hey!" he shouts back. "Gotta go, Allura," he fakes into the phone. "See ya later."

Just as he arrives in front of Lance, he "hangs up." And he can't help breaking into what he's sure is the sappiest smile alive. "What're you doing out here?" he asks. He hopes that he doesn't sound as pleased as he's currently feeling.

"Just taking a walk," Lance says breezily. It still sounds a little bit loaded, though. Probably because of the conversation that just went down between him and Lotor, because Keith finally remembers why that name sounded so familiar — Lance's _first_ break-up of 2018. The _serious_ one.

"S-Same." He pockets the phone, but then he notices how curiously Lance is staring up at him, with those big blue eyes that make him want to digest the butterflies that’ve had an annoying habit of taking inconvenient flights throughout his stomach over the past few days.

"...Everything okay?"  
"I thought you had a Razr," Lance says slowly.

The butterflies mount an unprecedentedly-vicious attack. "Th-This is my work phone," he explains, perhaps a little too quickly. But technically, it isn't a lie. "For business stuff."

_Yup. That's the truth. Literally._

"Fancy!" The moment's gone, just as rapidly as it came. But then they're just staring at each other...

...and Keith has absolutely no fucking clue what to do.

So he picks what's probably the easiest option: Run away. "Sooooo... I gotta run."

"O-Oh!" Lance stands. He can't seem to decide whether to put his hands in his stylish peacoat's pockets or let them swing loose by his sides. It's ridiculously-endearing. Keith wants to grab them.

_Bad idea bad idea bad idea—_

"I'm eating lunch with Katie. Pidge."  _Ugh._

_Wait._

"Come back with me?" he asks, a little too carefully.

Lance looks startled. He runs a distracting hand through his milk chocolate hair. (Keith's favorite kind of chocolate. Stupid taste buds.) "Uh, that's really nice of you, thanks so much, really, but I'd hate to interrupt—" he begins to babble.

"Come back with me," Keith repeats, effectively cutting the other man off. “They’ve got burgers, and based on your answer to question eighteen last night at 6:07 PM, I know you love burgers.”

“Guilty as charged,” Lance says. He isn’t smirking at all this time. Instead, he’s got the sweetest of smiles on his face. It’s like looking straight into the sun.

Keith might just spontaneously combust right then and there in the middle of the park. But before he does that, he impulsively steals Lance's hand straight from out of his hair and tugs it toward him.

Lance nearly falls over into his chest. Keith can feel himself dying inside all over again as he looks up into those eyes.  _Lance, four. Keith..._

_...still zero._

 

* * *

 

"He likes you, you know," Katie remarks as they stroll back to the office together. They'd parted ways with Lance at the corner as the other man returned to his own building, and even though Keith really  _does_  like Katie (even though she really does seem to have a knack for pushing his buttons), suddenly, he's feeling oddly alone.

Not that he can let  _that_  comment slide. "E-Excuse me?" he splutters. "Wh-What are you even, you don't, that's—"

"Aw, and you like him _back_!" Katie grins at him. It's a shit-eating grin. It puts Keith on at least DEFCON 3 alert. "That's..."

He stares at her, waiting with extreme trepidation for her to finish her sentence. It suddenly feels like the entire fate of the universe is riding on the end of that sentence.

"That's... nice."

He blinks, hard.  _Nice?_  He hadn't been expecting  _that_. In fact, he’d been low-key hoping that she’d say something along the lines of, “In your dreams, freak.” Because in the context of current circumstances, _that_ would make sense. “Nice” does _not_ make sense.

"Uhhhhh..."

"Look, Keith, I'm gonna be real honest with ya here." Katie lowers her voice as they enter their building — one of Keith's fellow cube-farmers eyes them somewhat suspiciously. Ulaz. He's got a white tuft of hair up top, just like Shiro's, although whether or not it's the result of PTSD as well, Keith isn't about to ask.

"Lance is...  _sensitive_.  _Really_  sensitive guy." She stares upward at Keith until he gives an understanding nod. After all, this isn't really new information to him. He's seen enough emotion-fueled dancing from the other side of Lance's webcam to know this to be one hundred and fifty percent true.

"He gives out nice like it costs him nothing, which, in an ideal world, would work in his favor, but..." Katie trails off for a pensive second. "Unfortunately,  _certain_  people have taken a lot of advantage of that."

"Lotor," Keith mutters, tone bitter. Ever since he'd listened-in on Lance's phone conversation earlier in the afternoon, he's remembering more and more details about the guy's past actions. In the grand scheme of things, Nyma had just been a hook-up, but Lance's previous ex had come from a full-on relationship, one that had lasted for at least a few months. And it hadn't ended well, that much is clear to Keith. He'd been assigned to monitor Lance just a few days before their tumultuous break-up, and it’d kind of been like witnessing a hurricane. A really,  _really_  bad hurricane.

The kind of hurricane that leads an otherwise perfectly-sane person toward sobbing through Spotify's top break-up songs on repeat night after night.

"Yeah." Katie frowns slightly as they enter the elevator. "Wait, how'd you know that?"

"Know what?" Keith asks, still a little bit absentminded. He's still turning Lance's laugh over and over in his head. How his eyes sparkled as he let Keith in even further on his and Katie's college days, revealing a story centering on an underwear-as-outerwear themed rager that ended with a broken skylight and an LSD bust that makes Keith see his buttoned-up co-worker in a completely different light.

How his hand had felt up against Keith's chest, for the sweetest, most perfect second.

"Lotor. That's Lance's ex-boyfriend." Behind their enormous lenses, Katie's eyes are tinged with suspicion. "Did you guys... talk about that?"

Suddenly, it's like all of the air in the already-musty elevator has been sucked into another dimension, leaving Keith painfully breathless.

"He doesn't usually talk about Lotor much," Katie emphasizes. "I know you two are clicking pretty quickly and all that, but…” She shrugs, punching buttons 3 and 5. “I guess I’m just surprised, ’s’all.”

“I-I won’t bring it up,” Keith promises. “I get it, uh, is… bad.”

Katie looks up at him. Instead of space buns, it’s pigtails today. One of them drags across her shoulder as she cocks her head. “Sounds like a plan, Chief.”

“So, uh.” He shoves his hands a little more deeply into his pockets, hoping that his face doesn’t look as twisted-up as he currently feels inside. “When you say he likes me… How exactly do you know—“

_PING._

“I hate to break up your little… _chat_. But this is your floor, and you should get out.”

Keith startles — he’d nearly forgotten that Ulaz was in there with them. He isn’t planning on apologizing to his cube-neighbor until he sees exactly how pointed the man’s stare is.

“S-Sorry,” he stutters.

It’s enough to shove Katie out of the tight metal box as well, but she has an amused expression on her face as the elevator’s doors begin to slide close. “See you at tea time?” she asks, something like a wink in her voice.

‘ _Tea,’ huh?_ “Sure thing.”

 

* * *

 

Turns out that the entire office server went down while they were out to lunch. All of that extra surveillance work had overloaded the network or something, and the karmic implications aren't particularly lost on Keith. Everybody’s in a foul mood, though, poking and prodding at monitors and modems and all of that fancy wiring stuff that he doesn’t know a single thing about. After all, that’s _Katie’s_ territory, not his.

Without his desktop up and running, he tries his hardest to stay productive (and far away from the tempting distractions of certain thoughts about certain people) by re-attempting the ever-indecipherable _War and Peace_ (seriously, what had his dad been thinking, enjoying this absolute monolith of a book?), but he’s not making any legitimate headway into Tolstoy’s classic by the time his afternoon break rolls around, so once again, he dashes out of the office. Only this time, he’s _much_ more jittery.

This is the part where Katie dishes all to him. This is the part where he finds out if Lance likes him… or _like_ likes him. (Still kind of a sick concept on his part, but _damn_ , wouldn't that be abso-fucking-lutely awesome or what?)

 _Get a grip, Chief,_ the voice warns as he gets out the break room’s French press from the cabinet by the sink. He’s so worked-up at this point, coffee’s probably the worst idea possible. But this isn’t a tea day. It just isn’t—

“This is all your fault.”

Keith whips around, hand halfway down the French press. That’s _definitely_ not Katie. Instead, it’s Regris, and his co-worker’s glaring at him from his seat at the break room table, something like death in his pale, pale eyes.

 _Fish_ eyes. A regular Gollum.

“Pardon?” Keith asks slowly. Caught alone with the eight-fingered man. Jesus Christ, he’s done for.

“You sabotaged the computers.” It’s a statement, not a question.

Keith wonders if he should continue being confused or move onward into pissed-off territory. The latter option’s pretty easy for him to choose, with how frantic he already is.

“You’ve _gotta_ be kidding me.”

“Petty,” Regris scoffs. He downs a gulp of shitty office coffee, then obnoxiously smacks his thin lips.

“Petty about _what_ , exactly?” Keith abandons the French press, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. CIA background be damned, this guy’s being rude, and he’s not about to let him get away with it.

“You’re throwin' a fit ‘cause Kolivan kicked you off Tetris,” his co-worker states plainly.

Keith just stares at him.

“Petty,” Regris repeats, glare pointier than a needle, and not at all disguised by a mountain of soft hay.

“You _seriously_ think I downed an entire FBI server... because of a computer game.” Never in his life has Keith sounded so utterly disbelieving.

Regris shrugs. “I dunno, Kogane. You seem like a pretty dubious guy to me.”

Now he’s _definitely_ pissed. “Okay, and what the hell is _that_ supposed to mean, huh?”

His co-worker stands up and strides toward the sink. He picks up the soggy communal sponge but doesn’t turn on the water to wash out his mug — instead, he looks Keith square in the face. “You’ve got your surveillance guy, right? And you think you’re making things better with those little conditions of yours. You think you can justify the ethics of your feelings because you’ve forced a compromise or two.”

Keith can feel his bad knee shaking slightly. Something in his heart’s speeding up, throat’s growing a golf ball-sized lump, eyes are going fuzzy. If he just lets the feeling take over, just gives in and goes—

 _I don’t do that anymore,_ he hears himself saying to Shiro.

“All I’m sayin’ is, if you really, _truly_ like this guy on the other side of your computer screen…” Regris leans in, those pale eyes colder than a winter moon.

“You’ve gotta make decisions. _Not_ deals.”

 

* * *

 

He’s still staring after Regris’s vanishing back when Katie suddenly appears beside him, face looking like Christmas has come early.

“Kolivan and Antok said we can all peace out for the rest day because we can’t do a single McFreakin' thing without our computers online!” she exclaims happily.

“Neat-o,” Keith mumbles, trying (and pretty much failing) to sound as equally jovial as possible.

“Gonna play _so_ much Overwatch…” She collects her Hello Kitty lunchbox from the staff fridge, humming something to herself. Weirdly enough, it sounds suspiciously like the _Legally Blonde_ song.

“Guess I’m headed to Starbucks, then," Keith reasons. "Shiro wanted me to wait for him so we can drive back to Maryland together tonight.”

Katie removes her head from the fridge. “Don’t do that. That’s boring. Come home with me for a bit instead.”

He blinks. “Wait. Seriously?”

“Yeah, _seriously_.” Katie rolls her eyes. “Ya dingus.”

“You aren’t tired of hanging out with me?” Keith says it before he really thinks about it — it just kind of slips out.

 _Whoops._ He really isn't used to having people around that like him.

His co-worker’s gaze softens as she smiles up at him. “Of _course_ not, Chief. You’re one of my besties. How could I ever be tired of you?”

Her sincerity’s overwhelming. Keith will need to go extra hard on the punching bag at the gym this week just to recuperate.

“If I tell Shiro the pigeon story, will you still stand by that statement?” he deadpans.

“Oh, shove off,” she mutters, treating him to another disdainful eye roll, but he knows that she doesn't mean it.

So he shakes off the storm cloud that Regris has suddenly pulled-in over his head, clocks out, and walks down 23rd toward Katie's place, with her chattering excitedly at elbow height all of the way there.

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Sorida, my real life (non-internet) bestie. Yes, I do have friends. I swear.


End file.
